Tag: meat diet

The Dirty Carnivore

Steak By – Dana

With all the new “Carnivore Diet” hype and the discovery that actually being a full time ZC carnivore is hard and in most cases, unnecessary, I thought I would bring back the original term used to describe people who were almost Carnivores. Re-introducing, the “Dirty Carnivore”.

Dirty Carnivore was a forum created, maybe back in 2010 (I forget the year) by somebody who could not give up her non ZC foods. This was a perfect example of Carbohydrate addiction. She felt better on a mostly meat diet, but felt some harmless low carb nuts, dark chocolate and veggies should be allowed. This same thing is going on, again, today. So many people want to be carnivores, but are finding it is not as easy as it sounds, because of acculturation and addiction to carbohydrates.

15 Common Zero Carb Questions Easily Answered

prime rib and crab By Marcy Lilly

A quick overview of some Zero Carb Carnivore Diet FAQ.

1. FOOD: What do you eat: Anything from the Animal Kingdom (meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, HWC)
For a weekly menu suggestion: See a Sample 1 week zero carb carnivore menu plan here.

2. QUANTITY: How much do you eat: as much and as often as you want. No limit. Too little will sabotage your efforts.

3. ADAPTATION: normally takes 30 days, but can last for a couple of months: fatigue, nausea, headaches, cramps, light headedness, heart palpitations, intense thirst. Your body is changing from sugar burning to fat burning.

4. How soon can I expect HEALING: as long as it takes. It didn’t take you only 30 days to feel this way, right?
When my husband tells me how long a project will take I automatically count that it will take 3x as long. Expect that it will take you 3x as long as you think it will take to heal. Then you might be pleasantly surprised.

Zero Carb Carnivore Diet and Cheating.

No Cheating By, Dana

The Zero Carb diet is an all or nothing diet. There is no “almost ZC” or 90% ZC, or ZC 4 days a week. If you are cheating and eating plant foods and or zero carb artificial sweeteners, you are not Zero Carb, you are Low Carb. It takes several weeks/months of 100% Zero Carb to become completely fat adapted and realize the amazing benefits that a plant free, chemical free, diet can do for you.

The Zero Carb Carnivore diet is similar to AA, Alcoholic Anonymous. ZC is basically AA for carbohydrate addicts. ZC is a diet for carb addicts and Zero Carb Health is a recovery, support and educational group for people (addict or not) trying to give up carbohydrates and get healthy.

When I started this diet 10 years ago, my carbohydrate addiction ended when my blood sugar stabilized. Blood sugar swings from eating carbohydrates is what drove my addiction. So, once they were gone, this diet was very easy for me. I never wanted a carbohydrate after my blood sugar got under control.

I soon learned that this was not the case for many people. Eliminating carbohydrates did not cure their carb addiction, like it did mine. This is when we realized that some people have a real addiction to carbs, just like alcohol/drug/smokers are addicted. This is why we are so strict about keeping images of carbohydrate “trigger” foods and posts about cheating, out of the group. Just like an alcoholic doesn’t want to hear about other alcoholics giving into drinking or seeing pictures of their favorite drink all over the place. We try to keep ZCH a carb free, safe zone.

Carbohydrate or sugar addiction is no different than an alcohol or drug addiction. The addiction infects every cell of your body and your brain. It takes about 90 days for the brain to break free of the immediate effects of an addictive substance. So, if you can’t make it 90 days or so of ZC then you are not even close to overcoming your addiction and becoming fat adapted. It takes the body weeks and months or years to detox from the damaging effects of years and years of the over consumption of carbohydrates and sugar.

When you keep cheating and feeding that addiction your body remains in a state of turmoil. Your body will not adapt to clean fat burning if you continue to feed it carbs. You think that 1 piece of dark chocolate or avocado or whatever, once a week or once a month has no effect on you, yet here you are complaining and upset because you are not seeing the results you want. Guess what? That 1 bite of sugar is obviously a huge problem for you! The fact that you can’t stop yourself from cheating should be a clue that you have a problem. But, that is why we are here, to help you get over your addiction. We are not here to give you gold stars for being ZC for 100 days. We want to help people ditch their sugar habits, but we can’t help anybody unless they are honest.

Not all of us are addicts. Those, like myself, who pretty much had an easy time transitioning to meat only, are not addicts. Those of you who keep cheating with sugar are bonafide addicts. Every bite or sip of sweetness is completely derailing any progress and putting you and your body right back at day 1.

So, stop fooling yourselves. If you cannot control cravings and continue to cheat over and over, you are not ZC and this diet will not work the way it is supposed to. You are “trying” to be ZC. There is nothing wrong with that. Your cheating experience is valuable because it is the most common problem. The struggle is real. Your honesty can help open up the discussion on how to help others with the same problem.

This diet is not easy. Most people have a very hard time. Most people can’t do it for very long. Don’t beat yourself up, just do the best you can and be honest about it. We are here to help you. If this diet makes you miserable and you see no benefits then it’s simply not for you.

For more information about the Zero Carb Carnivore Diet, join us in our Facebook Group.

The Human Natural Diet and the Evolution of the Zero Carb Diet. (Part 6)

Tri-Tip The Human Natural Diet and the Evolution of the Zero Carb Diet. (Part 6)

(Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3), (Part 4), (Part 5)

by, Dana

Ten years ago, when Zero Carb was just starting, Kimkins was the popular fad diet. Kimkins was a low carb, low fat diet. Most people who come to the Zero Carb diet, did so via a low carb and or a low fat diet, so many of our members were low carb, low fat or Kimkins refugees. Due to the fear of saturated fats, high cholesterol and heart disease, we had to stress eating fat. Eating animal fat is healthy, the human body loves animal fats. Animal fats give our bodies the fuel it needs to build a strong healthy body and brain. But people were conditioned to eating skinless chicken breasts, lean pork and fish, because those were the healthy white meats. We had to tell people to add fat in the form of butter, lard, tallow or bacon grease because if you do not eat enough fat, you will have no energy, and you will eventually give into carb cravings or quit the diet, altogether. Most of us added fat to our meals. It was like our bodies were fat starved. We craved it. We seeked out fat scraps in restaurants, butcher shops and grocery stores. We were fat crazed!
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Recognizing Hunger on a Zero Carb Carnivore Diet

Hungry By – Caitlin Tilton

HUNGER CUES

We’re learning “body” hunger instead of “head” hunger!

Head hunger will tell you that _____ carbs are what you are hungry for, right? We think we’re fighting cravings when we stand firm and don’t give in to those kind of signals. Or we feel like a failure if we do give in to those signals and eat _____ carbs.

We MUST begin to realize that this is actually “body” hunger. On a mixed diet, including carbs, and especially on a low calorie or restricted diet, our bodies are starving at the cellular level. They’re not getting the optimum fuel. So our cells cry out for fuel! It often takes the form of carbs, right? A candy bar, bread, juice/soda, pasta, etc. (Usually I avoid naming carbs, so overlook this, for the purpose of this discussion.)

When our mind/head suggests a certain carb, we call that a craving. Often it is so strong that we cannot focus on anything else until we locate that particular food and satisfy that craving.

Our Data For The Nequalsmany Zero Carb Carnivore Experiment

Rumors are going around the Zero Carb Community about a Doctor, Shawn Baker, wanting to conduct an experiment ( nequalsmany) to collect data about people who eat a zero carb carnivorous diet, specifically, meat and water. This could be exciting for those of us who live this lifestyle. We would love for our diet to get more exposure about how healthy it is, because we are tired of being in the closet about it, being shamed, condemned and bullied by doctors, family and loved ones.

I have to say I am not too excited by the Data he wants to collect. We have 10 years of observation and testimonials from thousands of people to easily produce the Data being sought.

We already know the results of this experiment.
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Tweaking the Zero Carb Diet – Don’t do it!

knowledge By: A 10 year Zero Carb Diet, meat only, veteran

Subjects covered in this post are, broadly speaking, IF and other forced fasting, Keto and LCHF protocols such as fat-shots, electrolytes and other supplements, restriction of food, macro-manipulations and various other mind-influenced ‘dieting’ interventions:

Most people, when they begin ZC, bring all sorts of LCHF/Keto ideas with them. This includes beliefs about adding extra fat, intermittent fasting and the ‘need’ for electrolytes as well as other supplementation, among many other things.

Zero Carb Diet and Alcohol

Wine Spritzer By, 10+ year ZeroCarb veteran

When faced with the major upcoming holidays or occasions, where alcohol will no doubt be frequently offered…… Will you, won’t you? What to do? And if you do, what to expect…so that you don’t make the mistake of thinking that those drinks are no big deal or won’t affect your weight or any other progress your body is starting to make on a Zero Carb diet.

Yes, alcohol is one of those things which some ZC’ers do partake in, now and then. This isn’t a post telling you NOT to have it, if you choose to do so. Instead, it is an attempt to help lend some insight into how to perhaps then change your expectations about your own body and what the effects of alcohol upon it may be, if you do choose to imbibe:

The Simplicity, Truth, And Freedom Of Carnivory

Crazy Cow Rescued from the internet archives! Unleash The Beef! 🙂

The Simplicity, Truth, And Freedom Of Carnivory

July 29, 2009

C. Norton

I began writing a piece to answer the question, “What would I have liked to hear when I first came upon the carnivorous path?” I quickly realized it sounded similar to something I’d already posted on Charles Washington’s Zeroing In On Health Forum, so I’ve decided to post that here, as is. There are a few forum-specific references but they’re inconsequential to the message.

The Human Natural Diet and the Evolution of the Zero Carb Diet. Part 3

The Human Natural Diet and the Evolution of the Zero Carb Diet. (Part 3)

(Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 4), (Part 5)

By Dana

After my “Natural Paleo” diet failure, I was desperate to find any diet, natural or not, that would work to help me lose weight. I wanted something I could eat for life, not some one week cabbage soup diet that works great, for 1 week only, then gain it all back and then some the next week. In my search for a diet I came across a website called Fatsecret. Fat secret had a pie chart of diets and their success rates based on members reporting. Atkins was winning by a landslide. (I just logged into my old fatsecret account and they no longer have this pie chart.)